Complex dynamics induced by delayed adaptive behavior during epidemics

Ronan F. Arthur; James H. Jones; Matthew H. Bonds; Marcus W. Feldman

Although there is growing interest in the role of dynamic human behavior in infectious disease dynamics, there is still a lack of general understanding of the most important properties of such systems [1, 9, 12] . For example, behavior change was a notable, though intentional, omission in a prominent CDC model that predicted outcomes of the recent West African Ebola epidemic in 2014. This model predicted a final size of the epidemic two orders of magnitude greater than what actually occurred [13] and this excess was due, in large measure, to behavior change. Behavior is difficult to measure, quantify, or predict [9] , in part, due to the complexity and diversity of human beings who make different choices under different circumstances. It is also highly variable depending on the relative time scales of the disease and behavioral responses.